A Million Years Ago
by blacktag189
Summary: A little fluff set 10 years after the end of my story Sex and Other Ways to Break You. Enjoy!


"Anya, I absolutely will not reschedule my c-section."

"But it's graduation weekend!" She bemoaned, her hands slapping down onto her jeans.

"The timing is horrible. I'll give you that, but I can't stand this for much longer," I heaved shoving my hands onto the small of my back trying to alleviate the pain.

"How is that my fault?" Anya grumbled.

"It's not. It's Stellan's for sneaking his gigantic children inside me," I snapped watching her eyes go wide with mortification. _Probably shouldn't have worded it that way._ I tried to regroup, "I'm not going to do it."

"What if she comes early?" She tried to quickly counter and we both looked over our shoulders at the bubble of giggles from behind the floor-length curtains. They moved slightly and I caught sight of tiny Superman socks sticking out from the bottom.

"That would be the best-case scenario for everyone involved," I sighed. The curtain whipped away from the wall and toward the fireplace and I called over to Alexi, "honey get away from there."

"So, you _could_ move up your c-section date," Anya challenged. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe again, it just made Emilia kick my ribs and I felt the very edge of my sanity start to fracture. Pushing my hand against the bulge on my right side I tried to nudge her to move. She decided to comply this time and I finally took the breath I needed and opened my eyes again. Only to see Alexi sliding in his socks in front of the fire.

"Alexi, _uydi ottuda pryamo seychas_!" I barked at him. He startled to attention and sheepishly replied,

"_Da, Mama_."

He sulked back a bit and I tried to keep one eye on him and the other on the exasperated Anya. At least she was unendingly patient - with Alexi, with me, with everything she'd had to suffer through over the years. I did want to be at her graduation, but Emilia's timing had been a little accidental. Which is why I'd thrown away every single bottle of tequila in this house once the stick had confirmed my suspicions almost nine months ago.

"You remember what happened when Alexi was too early. It's that date for a reason." I ran my hand over my giant belly and said, "we are all tremendously proud of you. Everyone else is already going to be there. And depending on how this all goes we might be able to as well. Or maybe just Stellan can go," I tried to pacify.

"But I want you there," she quietly admitted and I reached up, still jealous of how tall she'd ended up being, and tugged on the ends of her hair.

"I know," I gave her a sad smile. "I'll find a way to make it up to you."

She gave me a sad smile back, and it broke my heart. How many times had I needed to do this? Make it up to her. It wasn't the same. Parenting was showing up. Lord knows I tried and I had a better rate of success than Stellan did. But there were patches of time where our track record hadn't been stellar.

The curtains flung back again with a squeal of laughter and we looked over to see Alexi's socks slip out from underneath him. He slammed feet first into the fire grate, it collided with the roaring fire and embers exploded through all the grating to cover him in orange and yellow. I hadn't even registered my feet moving until my knees collided with the ground and I yanked the back of his shirt as hard as I could, skidding him out from the threat. Anya threw a blanket from the couch over him, thumping it as his panicked screaming reached me for the first time. He kicked at the blanket, yelling and crying, squirming toward me with his little palm outstretched. Anya pulled the blanket off, as he let out another yelp of pain. We both scanned him, pulling at his clothes, looking for some coal or ember that might still be attached. That's when I saw the first spark in his fist and screamed at Anya,

"Move back. Stop touching him."

"Avery?" She questioned, near tears and scared. Alexi yelped again and the little ball of lightning bolted across his belly to zap into his other hand. Just as quickly it was gone and his eyes rolled to the back of his head as he went still on the ground. I dove for him and Anya shrieked,

"No! Let me." She shoved a hard hand onto my shoulder, forcing me away. "Emilia."

With shaking hands, she gently touched his chest, and then immediately ran her fingers up to his neck, checking for a pulse. Then her ear came down to his chest as she listened for his breathing, "he just passed out."

I let out a hard exhale and felt a sharp pinch, right between my hips. I ran my hand over my swollen belly and whispered, "not now Emilia. Please not now."

Anya turned her huge blue eyes onto me and then in the next breath jumped to her feet, sprinting out of the room as she screamed, "JACK!"

Her voice kept yelling out into the house and I forced myself to breathe through the next contraction as I crawled toward Alexi. I brushed his soft toe head blond hair off his forehead and sat on the ground, grunting with the pain and discomfort of it and reached around my belly to gently rest his head on my leg.

"Alexi, honey, wake up." I tried to say soothingly as I shook him a little, his body firming up from all my prodding. His eyes fluttered. "There you are. Come on. Wake up for me."

The contraction this time was twice as bad and I pressed my lips tight, forcing myself to breathe through my nose as it rippled through my body. Alexi blinked awake and startled in my arms before clinging to my belly and crying in these broken sobs that were making tears start pouring down my face. I lifted him to sit on my leg, cradling him against my side, rubbing a hand up and down his back as I murmured anything to get him to calm down. As the next contraction punished me with its intensity, it took all my willpower to keep everything calm and comforting about my posture. I closed my eyes, rocking all three of us, trying to battle the panic clawing up my chest about everything that was happening at once.

I heard their thundering run down the halls as the contraction stopped and opened my eyes to find Anya, Jack, and Elodie detailing everything happening in the room. Elodie dropped to her knees and pulled back the burnt edge of Alexi's pants to reveal what I already knew was going to be there. I looked away. I didn't want to see the visual confirmation of what kept me up at night. The proof that all my paranoia had been justified. I just stroked and rocked away the final few whimpers as he settled. The next contraction started and I couldn't help the grunt of pain that escaped my chest and then felt a rush of warm water soak into my maternity jeans. I ground out through my teeth,

"Call Stellan."

"He's ten minutes out," Jack immediately answered.

"Send him to Portland. My water just broke," I groaned as the contraction hit a peak.

"For fuck's sake," Elodie said under her breath and we met eyes for a minute. "You can't catch a break can you?"

I laughed. I had to. Elodie picked up Alexi, clutching him to her chest, Jack and Anya helped me off the floor and then leaned me against the edge of the couch while Jack ran to get the car. I could hear my phone buzzing in my purse on the table, but there was no way I was going to move as the next contraction started to build. Instead, Anya pulled out her phone and ordered,

"Go to Portland. No, he'll be fine. Something happened, but we can talk about that later. Yes, later. You're having a baby today."

* * *

I felt his fingers first, slowly raking through my hair and tried to shift on the hospital bed, my battered body protesting it immediately.

"Just relax," he whispered. I nodded and forced my eyes open through all the groggy side effects of the postpartum drugs pumping through my system. The room swam into focus, my monitors to my left, the seafoam green blankets untucked around my feet, and Stellan to my right holding the railing of my bed as he leaned forward to kiss the crown of my head.

He pulled back and I looked up into his haggard face. He gave me a small smile and said, "she's beautiful. And stable."

"Thank god," I exhaled and put my hands over my face, my IV tugging a bit on my hand. The tears started to well behind my eyes and I dropped my hands and looked back into his waiting face. He was already shaking his head, just the tiniest bit, his eyes begging me not to ask. But it was a compulsion now, it's what all my nightmares centered around, doubly so after what had happened to Alexi today. _Oh, my poor baby_, I thought. _My sweet Alexi._ The tears broke down my face and I forced through the hard ball in my throat,

"What color?"

"It doesn't matter, Avery." He sighed, collapsing down onto the bed rail, exhausted.

"Tell me," I pressed him and wiped at my face, tears still streaming despite my efforts. He hung his head and I already had my answer. The misery overwhelmed me and I sobbed into my hands, the monitors to my left starting to squawk at us.

"Don't do this to yourself. Please, I'm begging you. It means nothing," he whispered and leaned forward to kiss my temple over and over.

"Now we have to run all the tests," I hiccuped, "and double the security." I couldn't stop the next hysterical hiccup, "we didn't want this life for them. We didn't die for this Stellan."

"_Lyubov' moya,_" he gently started and I felt his steady, warm, fingers slide under my chin to lift my face up to see his. His thumb swiping across my cheek to wipe away some tears as I hiccuped again. "We did."

"No," I shook my head in his hand.

"We suffered through all that so they won't have to. This is how it works. That's how genetics work. I'm assuming that's how blood magic works but it turns out magicians are hard to come by." He gave me a tentative smile and I let out a few pathetic sounding laughs.

"How is my baby?" I asked, darting my eyes to my cracked room door as if he might be just outside it.

"I've been better," Stellan deadpanned, swiping at the other cheek before removing his hand.

I gave him a scowl and he stood back up, stretching above his head as his body popped and cracked with the effort.

"Anya and Elodie took him out for ice cream. They're going to drop him with Luc and Javier later on tonight to relieve Jack. He's staying with Emilia." He clarified and then scanned the room, slightly shaking out his left fist. It would have been a subtle gesture for anyone else, but my heart started thudding harder in my chest. He looked over at the monitor and frowned.

"What's wrong?" I quietly asked.

"I hate being here," he immediately answered and crossed his arms over his chest taking a big breath.

"Hospitals? I know," I pacified but his arms just tightened over his blue dress shirt.

"No," he shook his head and glanced out the windows at the coming darkness. "Just this hospital."

Instantly, I was seventeen again. Sobbing, bleeding, screaming at him to calm down as the equipment short-circuited around us. Our biggest mistake. The thing we never talked about again. The catalyst that altered the trajectory of our relationship. It felt like a million years ago, and yet if I closed my eyes I could still see the look on his face. No matter how much time had passed, how much stronger we were from the aftermath, I don't think either of us would ever live that moment down.

Maybe we weren't supposed to. It was a reminder of what happened when we stopped trusting each other. And after a decade of wrestling the Circle into compliance, our implicit trust in each other was what had finally brought peace. It was the reason we'd had Alexi. It was the reason I'd stepped back from all the Circle meetings to raise him. Though it was also the reason I'd let him make me margaritas until we'd fumbled our way into the powder room eight months ago.

"I love you, Stellan," I said, breaking the silence. He turned to me, immediately, as I stretched out my hand toward him.

"I will always love you," he replied, grabbing my hand and planting a long kiss right below my rings, "no matter what."

He smiled at me, that beautiful smile that still made my heart beat faster, even with the lines on his face growing deeper from age. There was a light knock on the door and then our OBGYN slipped in,

"Ready to meet your daughter, Avery?" She smiled at us both, "she has your eyes."

"I can't wait to see," I smiled back.


End file.
